A Rhodes Scholar, Carolyn Evans is the Vice-Chancellor and President of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. Prior to joining Griffith in 2019, Professor Evans was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Graduate and International) and Deputy Provost at the University of Melbourne, and Dean and Harrison Moore Professor of Law, University of Melbourne Law School. In 2019, Professor Evans was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She is President of the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association, and was Chair of the Innovative Research Universities from 2021 to 2022 and board member of Universities Australia from 2019 to 2023. A widely published legal scholar, she is an internationally recognised expert on religious freedom and the relationship between law and religion. A former lecturer in law at Exeter, she is the first female graduate of Exeter to be head of a university.
Evans was elected an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College in 2023.